Festival, the price to pay

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

I would like to share here with musicians, technicians, turners, public on access to festivals and especially on the price of places.

I’m not the guy who spends his life in concerts. Installed very isolated, far from places suitable for the consumption of my favorite music.
If I go to a Festival, it’s generally to see one or two artists (if their schedules are close enough).
So I use the concept of festival rather badly but finally or else to see certain artists?
My last Festival for example, Dour, for a duration of 2 hours, Aphex Twin and a small part of the very disappointing performance of Mix Master Mike.

The festivals of this summer are looming and I find on the program of the Best Kept Secret Festival 2023 (Best Kept Secret Tickets) in Holland,
I find Aphex Twin there, less than 200km from my home, the animal wakes up. Then I come across the page of tickets and associated prices, the animal goes back to sleep.

I probably live on a little cloud full of unicorns but I didn’t expect such a price.
Various articles in French deal with rising prices in all sectors related directly or indirectly to festivals.
The price of insurance (weather in priority) explodes, the price of artists can quickly be delirious, energies, security and the multitude of other things.
Ok I understand that but aren’t the proportions outdated? Should we really pool the staggering prices demanded by certain artists?

“the artist’s fee has exploded by 15 to 30% since 2021. Example? The Scottish rockers of Simple Minds are asking for 400,000 euros per date
while Benjamin Biolay’s remuneration does not exceed 80,000 euros.”
If a French artist with moderate popularity like BB already costs 80,000 ( :grimacing:), the price of SM is relatively logical with a much larger potential attraction.
A festival that takes place in Liège (±200,000 inhabitants), Les Ardentes (https://lesardentes.be/lineup), invites big American names,
Kendrick Lamar or Travis Scott for example. In 2015, Kendrick Lamar at Les Ardentes: “Several hundred thousand euros”…

Do you go to festivals? Are your prices similar? Do you find that justified? When will the music cut out live? Who will be able to afford it, say, in 2025? 2030?

Thanks.

#2

I used to go to quite a few festivals in my youth at the end of the last century.

If I remember, a weekend pass for Reading Festival was about £70. Fuck know what it goes for now, but I’d guess somewhere about £250.

I’ve never been to Glastonbury, because I hate hippies and I hate crowds of weekend hippies even more.

Went to some small festival in Wales for my best mate’s birthday last year. I think it was about £150, but they didn’t have a lot of big names (Noel Gallagher being the only big name).

I go to Bangface pretty much every year and that’s been about £200 a head for a while, but you’re getting a full chalet and real beds for that, instead of a piece of grass to pitch a tent on. Also, it’s not really a festival, more a sort of dress rehearsal for the end of days.

I’m taking my family to Deershed Festival this year, as it’s supposed to be really good for kids. I think it’s cost us £600 for me, my wife and two kids (2 and 5), which is insane really, but I don’t mind because the Delgados are reforming and playing there, so cool I guess.

I think the going rate these days is probably something around £200-£250.

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#3

Glastonbury is three hundred and thirty five pounds. Which is pretty crazytown.

I think a lot of portions of this industry took massive L’s for 2-3 years, and that’s part of this.
It does make you question quite who’s going to these though. I certainly wouldn’t have had three hundred quid spare to go when I was 15 (which is when I went to my first festival.) OK that was about 200 years ago, but it was hard enough to find the 45 quid I think it actually cost.

I’ve done a lot of festivals in the last 20 years, but tbh a LOT of them I got into by finding some kind of low stress/creative/crew type work. They’ve been kinda expensive to do for a long time.

I guess 2-3 years is probably only true for events people too - artists have been getting screwed for well over a decade now no-one pays them for recorded music.

so. I dunno, yeah, it’s rubbish. But this is where we are a bit.

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#4

lowlands just hit EUR300 which is a big deal round here

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#5

Fuck

That’s twice as much as Bloodstock.

Moral of the story…go to bloodstock.

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#6

Ok it seems to be even worse in the UK!
@the_duckchild I don’t know where today’s young people get these sums.
I did a lot of Free games, maybe that’s also what spoils my appreciation.

#7

:neutral_face:
Or selling organs

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#8

I mean, fortunately getting a Glastonbury ticket involves getting up at 4am about a week after the previous year’s one finishes, sacrificing a goat at full moon, then queueing on a phone line for ten hours, then supplying nine forms of ID and a blood sample in triplicate.

I’m unable to do any of that for cultural reasons so I can’t give them three hundred and fifty quid anyway.

it is bonkers though. Although not as bonkers as the fact that Ugly Kid Joe are still going which I just discovered looking at Bloodstock.

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#9

I prefer the Bloodstock line-up over Glastonbury every year. I like smaller festivals and not sure Glastonbury is about music anymore.

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#10

I used to go to them years ago like Ozzfest when tix were cheap at $25-30 back in 2003 or so. Now concert prices and festival tickets are way too high these days for a decent seat. I refuse to pay $500 for a live event show now. I was fortunate to see tons of bands years ago when prices were affordable.

#11

I stopped going to Glastonbury when they put the big fence up and invited Mean Fiddler to be involved. To me, living just down the road, it was a great place to go and party. We didn’t really care what the line up was as we would find a rave in some part of the site or travellers field.
Never paid, always jumped (jumped sounds too dynamic; scrambled up then hung and dropped on the other side) or scrabbled under.
Bargain.

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#12

I have been traveling with theater performers intermittently once pandemic travel opened up again, with some stage gear and logistics has been somewhat of a nightmare.

15-30% additional cost to transport necessary equipment and set pieces makes sense, because I’ve seen similar increases when trying to help coordinate reliable shipping worldwide. At least the costs on our end are helped with grants and not passed on to whatever festival-goer (usually free for them or quite subsidized.)

To large music festivals… I have some friends who still go, but I’ve never been a huge fan of the vibes and tend to prefer local (often genre/label specific) festivals which take over most proximal venues, lots more goodwill to the artists and community. Plus usually insanely cheaper, even if you get a “VIP” pass (or gifted through volunteering.)

Definitely, I also enjoy attending festivals by being backup sound person (or even a runner), but sometimes my brain finds it easier to be mindful and experience things while running manual tasks.

I also have a place to sit and generally less annoying kids and over-served obnoxious adults affecting my experience, which (beyond cost) can be the biggest drawbacks for me at any large event.

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#13

ArcTanGent this year is costing me £200 and Field Day is £75 I think. Which is pretty good for the sheer amount of bands/artists and good times.

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#14

No. I think many of them are a rip off and probably more aimed at middle class guardian readers with disposable income, than people like me.

But that’s ok, because I wouldn’t go if they were free. When I was younger I went to raves, and a few years later a few festivals but TBT I never enjoyed the festivals, too corporate for my taste. The raves were far more low key and illegal, and exciting, I guess there are a few festivals that at least try to capture that vibe, but I’m too old for all that malarkey now.

Not throwing shade at people who dig them though, I’m sure there are some great ones, but I really have no idea/interest.

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#15

It is sure that there are good sides but a lot of interference in the listening pleasure. I take the example of Dour, population very, see too young, parasols, balloons, or objects that fly between your eyes and the scene, not to mention that 90% seem to be the most to film lives than to see them. These are also things that are to be calculated in the price.
On the other hand to see Aphex Twin, I’m not going to visit him!
Already he might not open his door to me and what are the chances that he will accept to play for me?

#16

The ticket price for some of these events is a bit silly but I’m afraid it’s typically not the organisers or the crew/caterers/staff/etc getting rich, it’s the big name artists. I know people who have run festivals and many people who have worked at them and I assure you they aren’t making that much money. Smaller festivals with cheaper artists cost less and the ticket price is therefore lower. It’s a boring answer but it’s true.

It costs a lot to put this stuff on but not so much that the rolling stones need to be paid £1m for a single headline Glastonbury gig, as was reported a few years ago. It’s just greed I’m afraid.

Same with the movies. I know of well-documented movies that had $160m budget and the top 3 actors got paid $20m each. It’s ludicrous.

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#17

Of course the organizers for large festivals do well, or they wouldn’t have them. Much moreso with organizers that handle multiple festivals at a time (can’t just be a US-based phenomena?)

Placing whatever operating board on the same economic level as crew/caterers/security staff and volunteers is odd.

Not that they don’t hook in great artists, but scaling to mega-festival level is necessarily about the money.

Perhaps we are talking about different scales here. Obviously local festivals are a labor of love…

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#18

Wasn’t my intention to equate the crew with the organisers so that’s my bad.

The point remains that typically a pretty hefty proportion of the profit goes to the big name artists, far more than they need, and it helps to push the price up. Just seems a shame that people get greedy when they get famous, thus the movie star reference.

#19

It all gets particularly bad when an event has high demand and resellers snatch up large blocks of tickets.

#20

Oh yeah, mostly teasing there.

The organizers aren’t doing this for charity, they’re factoring it into whatever rising price of tickets, they want to get people who tour less often and seek out these artists.

It’s a choice by the organizers, they seek out this scale of operation in the same way that studios demand “top tier talent” based on how much they’re willing to shell out for “blockbuster” movies.

Obviously many of these artists are quite talented, but nobody’s forcing the organizers to spend this much money on everything the youth want like… The Rolling Stones?

Signing contracts for “greedy” octogenarian artists is something large organizing bodies do in the interest of selling more tickets, even at the greater cost these signings incur.

What’s the equivalent of FESTIVALS | Goldenvoice that puts these megafests on?

I’d be surprised if there were any large festivals that didn’t happen with, considering how few ticketing agencies exist :confused: